The present invention relates generally to presence detection and more particularly to establishing presence ratings.
In computer and telecommunications networks, “presence” is a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner (e.g., a user of a communication device) to communicate. A user's communication device provides presence information (e.g., a presence state) to appropriate presence information outlets. This information can be made available for distribution to other users to convey the availability for communication. Presence information has wide application in many communication services, specifically instant messaging, mobile and wired telephone systems, conference services, voice over IP (VOIP), and other collaboration applications.
Presence Incorporating Systems (PIS) provide presences status information related to users of such systems. The system displays or otherwise provides presence information to other users. A user communication device (e.g., via client) may publish a presence state to indicate its current communication status. This published state informs other users that wish to interact with the user of the availability and willingness to communicate. The most common use of presence is to display an indicator icon on instant messaging clients, typically from a choice of graphic symbol with an easy-to-convey meaning and a list of corresponding text descriptions of each of the states.
Exemplary presence states include “free for chat”, “busy”, “away”, “do not disturb”, “out to lunch”, user defined text or images, etc. Generally, these are “explicit” presence states. That is, they are set by a user and are static until an alternate state is set, until the user's client is powered down, or until another predetermined condition is met (e.g., expiration of a time limit, etc.).
Additionally and/or alternatively, “implicit” presence states are used. Implicit presence states are states that are not set by the user, but are determined by some other means—generally determined based on use or disuse of a particular user device. For example, a user state may be automatically set to “available” as soon as the client is started and may again be automatically set to “away” when the client is unused for a predetermined period of time.
The use of explicit presence information is unreliable because a user may forget to change or update status information. The use of implicit presence information is unreliable because the time-based updating of presence information does not account for modern usage of multiple devices.
Accordingly, improved systems and methods for presence information generation are required.